Google is launching its Stadia cloud gaming service at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who says he plays FIFA 19 “quite a bit,” introduced the Stadia service during a special keynote at GDC this morning. Describing it as a platform for everyone, Pichai talked up Google’s ambitions to stream games to all types of devices. Stadia will stream games from the cloud to the Chrome browser, Chromecast, and Pixel devices, and it will launch at some point in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe.

Phil Harrison, a former Sony and Microsoft executive, joined Pichai onstage to fully unveil Stadia in [1]his role at Google. Harrison says Google will amplify this game streaming service by using YouTube and the many creators that already create game clips on the service. Google previously tested this service as [2]Project Stream in recent months, allowing Chrome users to stream games in their browser. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the first and only game to be tested publicly using Google’s service, and the public tests finished in January.

Of course, Google won’t limit Stadia to just one game. Google demonstrated a new feature in YouTube that lets you view a game clip from a creator and then hit “play now” to instantly stream the title. “Stadia offers instant access to play,” says Harrison, without the need to download or install any games. At launch, games will be streamable across laptops, desktops, TVs, tablets, and phones.

"Google will leverage YouTube for Stadia"

Google demonstrated moving gameplay seamlessly from a phone to a tablet and then to a TV, all using Google-powered devices. While existing USB controllers will work on a laptop or PC, Google is also launching a new Stadia Controller that will power the game streaming service. It looks like a cross between an Xbox and PS4 controller, and it will work with the Stadia service by connecting directly through Wi-Fi to link it to a game session in the cloud. This will presumably help with latency and moving a game from one device to another. You can also use a button to capture and share clips straight to YouTube, or use another button to access the Google Assistant.

To power all of this cloud streaming, Google is leveraging its global infrastructure of data centers to ensure servers are as close to players around the world as possible. That’s a key part of Stadia, as lower latency is a necessity to stream games effectively across the internet. Google will support up to 4K at 60 fps at launch, and it’s planning to support up to 8K resolutions and 120 fps in the future.

"Stadia has more teraflops of power than an Xbox One X"

Google is partnering with AMD to build a custom GPU for its datacenters. It’s a chip that Google claims will deliver 10.7 teraflops of power, which is more than the 4.2 teraflops of the PS4 Pro and the 6 teraflops of power on the Xbox One X. Each Stadia instance will also be powered by a custom 2.7GHz x86 processor with 16GB of RAM.

One of the first games to launch on Google’s Stadia service will be Doom Eternal, which will support 4K resolution, HDR, and 60 fps game play. Doom Eternal doesn’t have a firm launch date just yet, but it will also be available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. Stadia will also embrace full cross-platform play, so developers can enable cross-platform multiplayer and game saves and progression.

Focusing on developers, Google also unveiled an impressive way for game developers to apply their own design style to titles on Stadia. It’s a machine learning-based style transfer tool that developers can use to simply drop an image into the video frames of games and have it mimic the style throughout. Google is also using something called State Share to let players easily share moments, so you can even share an exact link to a part of a game, changing the way games are typically shared. Q-Games founder Dylan Cuthbert is even building an entire game all around this new State Share feature.

YouTube is a giant part of Stadia, and Google appears to be relying on it to push gamers to its cloud service. More than 50 billion hours of gaming content was watched on YouTube during 2018, so Google is letting Stadia users highlight, capture, and share straight to YouTube or even let viewers play alongside creators. A Crowd Play feature of Stadia is designed to facilitate this, and it includes a lobby system to let you match up with YouTube content creators.

"Google launches its own game dev studio"

Google is even creating its own game studio for Stadia-exclusive titles, Stadia Games and Entertainment. Jade Raymond, who recently joined Google as a VP is leading Google’s push for its own games. Raymond is an industry veteran who has previously worked at Sony, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft. Google says more than 100 studios already have dev kits for Stadia, and more than 1,000 creatives and engineers are already working on titles that will work on the service.

While Google unveiled Stadia today, it had no details on exactly when the service will be available other than 2019. Google didn’t reveal pricing or even how many games the service will have at launch, but is promising more details in the summer.

Google will naturally face competition from a number of rivals that you’d typically associate with games and gaming services. Microsoft is planning its own [3]xCloud game streaming service, which it [4]demonstrated recently, with public trials set to start later this year. [5]Amazon also appears to be readying a similar service, and both Nvidia and Sony are already streaming games over the internet. Even Valve is [6]expanding its Steam Link game-streaming feature to allow you to stream your Steam games from a PC to anywhere through the Steam Link hardware or the Steam Link app.

Suppose thata) Computers continue to get cheaperb) All the mindbogglingly complicated crapware for cloud orchestration gets replaced by something easy to usec) Things like AI either exit their overhype phase and/or - I would argue inevitably - become vastly more efficient

Why won't the cloud go the same way as every other bureau service in history ? They progress from 'so much easier' through 'too much of my budget but I guess we need it' to disruption where someone solves the boring 5% of the problem that 90% of the users care about and it becomes a product you lease then one you buy in house.

At the point where you have a 21" rack in the office that has a red network switch and a blue network switch on it and you add computing power or storage nodes by inserting a new node and you connect the blue port to the blue switch with the blue wire, and the red port to the red switch with the red wire and press the pair button would we need the giant cloud providers any more ?

Or were IBM right -... mehr anzeigen

Today's question

Does the cloud have a future ?

Suppose thata) Computers continue to get cheaperb) All the mindbogglingly complicated crapware for cloud orchestration gets replaced by something easy to usec) Things like AI either exit their overhype phase and/or - I would argue inevitably - become vastly more efficient

Why won't the cloud go the same way as every other bureau service in history ? They progress from 'so much easier' through 'too much of my budget but I guess we need it' to disruption where someone solves the boring 5% of the problem that 90% of the users care about and it becomes a product you lease then one you buy in house.

At the point where you have a 21" rack in the office that has a red network switch and a blue network switch on it and you add computing power or storage nodes by inserting a new node and you connect the blue port to the blue switch with the blue wire, and the red port to the red switch with the red wire and press the pair button would we need the giant cloud providers any more ?

Or were IBM right - the world only needs five computers - Google, Amazon, Tencent. Baidu, ....

Dropbox just did a crappy thing to its “Basic” users — free users, that is. The company quietly added a new caveat that limits these accounts to a mere three devices. To use your Dropbox account on four or more devices, you must pay for the service’s premium version, which will cost you at least $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

If you already had a free Dropbox Account before the switch, there’s good news and bad news. Dropbox won’t deactivate any devices if you exceed this new limit. So, if you have 10 devices synced to one free Dropbox account, they will all continue to work.

However, users who have more than three devices attached to their accounts will not be able to sync any new hardware until they unlink all but two of their devices to comply with the new limit.

Noticed how many cloud services are dropping offerings on their free tiers (ie. like Flickr) so it may be well worth your while considering alternative services that you can host your self without restrictions and often for much less. Like free open source alte... mehr anzeigen

Dropbox just did a crappy thing to its “Basic” users — free users, that is. The company quietly added a new caveat that limits these accounts to a mere three devices. To use your Dropbox account on four or more devices, you must pay for the service’s premium version, which will cost you at least $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

If you already had a free Dropbox Account before the switch, there’s good news and bad news. Dropbox won’t deactivate any devices if you exceed this new limit. So, if you have 10 devices synced to one free Dropbox account, they will all continue to work.

However, users who have more than three devices attached to their accounts will not be able to sync any new hardware until they unlink all but two of their devices to comply with the new limit.

Noticed how many cloud services are dropping offerings on their free tiers (ie. like Flickr) so it may be well worth your while considering alternative services that you can host your self without restrictions and often for much less. Like free open source alternatives, it sometimes means putting in a little effort to achieve this. But one tech-savvy person is a family could setup such a service and provide it to 10 or 20 family members with the added bonus that no-one is selling off your data!

For example, NextCloud easily replaces Dropbox and has tons of extra functionality that you do not get with Dropbox. Piwigo replaces Flickr. For under $10 per month both these, and more services, can be run for a whole family.

How to Unlink Dropbox Devices to Meet the New Limits for Free Users - Free users only get three devices now

Dropbox just did a crappy thing to its “Basic” users — free users, that is. The company quietly added a new caveat that limits these accounts to a mere three devices. To use your Dropbox account on four or more devices, you must pay for the service’s premium version, which will cost you at least $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

If you already had a free Dropbox Account before the switch, there’s good news and bad news. Dropbox won’t deactivate any devices if you exceed this new limit. So, if you have 10 devices synced to one free Dropbox account, they will all continue to work.

However, users who have more than three devices attached to their accounts will not be able to sync any new hardware until they unlink all but two of their devices to comply with the new limit.

Noticed how many cloud services are dropping offerings on their free tiers (ie. like Flickr) so it may be well worth your while c... mehr anzeigen

How to Unlink Dropbox Devices to Meet the New Limits for Free Users - Free users only get three devices now

Dropbox just did a crappy thing to its “Basic” users — free users, that is. The company quietly added a new caveat that limits these accounts to a mere three devices. To use your Dropbox account on four or more devices, you must pay for the service’s premium version, which will cost you at least $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

If you already had a free Dropbox Account before the switch, there’s good news and bad news. Dropbox won’t deactivate any devices if you exceed this new limit. So, if you have 10 devices synced to one free Dropbox account, they will all continue to work.

However, users who have more than three devices attached to their accounts will not be able to sync any new hardware until they unlink all but two of their devices to comply with the new limit.

Noticed how many cloud services are dropping offerings on their free tiers (ie. like Flickr) so it may be well worth your while considering alternative services that you can host your self without restrictions and often for much less. Like free open source alternatives, it sometimes means putting in a little effort to achieve this. But one tech-savvy person is a family could setup such a service and provide it to 10 or 20 family members with the added bonus that no-one is selling off your data!

For example, NextCloud easily replaces Dropbox and has tons of extra functionality that you do not get with Dropbox. Piwigo replaces Flickr. For under $10 per month both these, and more services, can be run for a whole family.

Dropbox just did a crappy thing to its “Basic” users—free users, that is. The company quietly added a new caveat that limits these accounts to a mere three devices. To use your Dropbox account on four or more devices, you must pay for the service’s premium version, which will cost you at least $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

Dropbox adds three-device limit for free users - The Verge

Users with more than three devices linked before March 2019 will be allowed to keep those devices connected, even if they’re over the three-device limit. But adding new devices — say, if you get a new computer or phone — won’t be allowed.

In spite of new competition from Amazon, MongoDB finished the year beating Wall Street estimates. MongoDB’s Atlas managed cloud service was the epicenter of growth, with business quadrupling over the year.

Travis Morrison, director of IT at New Belgium Brewing, outlines the economics made the case for a private cloud deployment over public cloud as the company built out its second brewery. Morrison also walks through the variables behind the decision and tips for other enterprises.

Huawei said on Tuesday that its Cloud offering is now available in South Africa. “Like all Huawei Cloud data centres, the South African facility complies with tier 3+ standards and uses Huawei’s high-performance chips and network devices to offer a better user experience,” the Chinese electronics giant said in a statement. Huawei is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions, it said. Huawei plans to gradually operate more data centres in Kenya, Nigeria and other countries in Africa, it said.

Microsoft has officially launched two Azure cloud data centres in South Africa, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg, after the software giant missed an earlier deadline of December 2018 to take the facilities live. Lillian Barnard, newly appointed MD at Microsoft South Africa, said at a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that the data centre region is live with immediate effect. “The enterprise-gra... mehr anzeigen

Huawei said on Tuesday that its Cloud offering is now available in South Africa. “Like all Huawei Cloud data centres, the South African facility complies with tier 3+ standards and uses Huawei’s high-performance chips and network devices to offer a better user experience,” the Chinese electronics giant said in a statement. Huawei is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions, it said. Huawei plans to gradually operate more data centres in Kenya, Nigeria and other countries in Africa, it said.

Microsoft has officially launched two Azure cloud data centres in South Africa, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg, after the software giant missed an earlier deadline of December 2018 to take the facilities live. Lillian Barnard, newly appointed MD at Microsoft South Africa, said at a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that the data centre region is live with immediate effect. “The enterprise-grade data centre regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg … will power cloud, artificial intelligence and edge computing innovations across the continent,” Barnard said.

Both Huawei Cloud and Microsoft Cloud are now available in South Africa

Huawei said on Tuesday that its Cloud offering is now available in South Africa. “Like all Huawei Cloud data centres, the South African facility complies with tier 3+ standards and uses Huawei’s high-performance chips and network devices to offer a better user experience,” the Chinese electronics giant said in a statement. Huawei is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions, it said. Huawei plans to gradually operate more data centres in Kenya, Nigeria and other countries in Africa, it said.

Microsoft has officially launched two Azure cloud data centres in South Africa, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg, after the software giant missed an earlier deadl... mehr anzeigen

Both Huawei Cloud and Microsoft Cloud are now available in South Africa

Huawei said on Tuesday that its Cloud offering is now available in South Africa. “Like all Huawei Cloud data centres, the South African facility complies with tier 3+ standards and uses Huawei’s high-performance chips and network devices to offer a better user experience,” the Chinese electronics giant said in a statement. Huawei is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions, it said. Huawei plans to gradually operate more data centres in Kenya, Nigeria and other countries in Africa, it said.

Microsoft has officially launched two Azure cloud data centres in South Africa, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg, after the software giant missed an earlier deadline of December 2018 to take the facilities live. Lillian Barnard, newly appointed MD at Microsoft South Africa, said at a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that the data centre region is live with immediate effect. “The enterprise-grade data centre regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg … will power cloud, artificial intelligence and edge computing innovations across the continent,” Barnard said.

Cloud Firewall – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Cloud Firewall is a browser extension/addon that allows you to toggle blocking ON or OFF for allowing your browser to connect to web pages and web resources (like images, videos) hosted on popular top 5 cloud/companies.Example: If "Block Amazon" is toggled ON in Popup, all websites, other pages and resources (like images, javascript) hosted in Amazon Cloud will be blocked.

By default, in version 0.0.1, the toggle state ON or OFF in popup menu is not persisted across browser restarts. When browser starts, all 5 toggles are set to OFF , i.e allow connections to all 5 cloud by default. You have the option to open popup menu and toggle ON or OFF against each cloud that you wish to block or allow.

Inspiration:... mehr anzeigen

Cloud Firewall – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Cloud Firewall is a browser extension/addon that allows you to toggle blocking ON or OFF for allowing your browser to connect to web pages and web resources (like images, videos) hosted on popular top 5 cloud/companies.Example: If "Block Amazon" is toggled ON in Popup, all websites, other pages and resources (like images, javascript) hosted in Amazon Cloud will be blocked.

By default, in version 0.0.1, the toggle state ON or OFF in popup menu is not persisted across browser restarts. When browser starts, all 5 toggles are set to OFF , i.e allow connections to all 5 cloud by default. You have the option to open popup menu and toggle ON or OFF against each cloud that you wish to block or allow.

Inspiration:

The inspiration behind the creation of this addon was the "Life without the tech giants" series by Kashmir Hill and Dhruv Mehrotra. Read it here : Gizmodo series and Dhruv Mehrotra published the VPN tool in his Github

I used the AS.csv from his repository and the BASH script to generate the list of IPv4/IPv6 CIDR blocks/ranges owned by each of the 5 companies

Cloud services can save small businesses from having to invest and manage their own infrastructure. But there's a cost: lock-in. As cloud vendors increase their prices, businesses may well be trapped into paying more and more.

Recent years have been about enterprises moving to the cloud with storage and compute. Customers have benefited from the competition between Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, but now you're in the door the great up sell begins.

SAP's executive vice president of marketing and communications, Nick Tzitzon, explains how this company of 96,000 employees drives change across the organization. It's an inside look at the real challenges and opportunities of running a large company with lessons for managers in every department.

In an announcement ahead of the RSA Conference, Microsoft released details of two cloud-based security tools for large organizations. The new tools use AI and machine learning to help security professionals reduce "alert fatigue" and respond to actual threats more quickly.